


Can you tell me of him?

by Navi (deprespresso)



Category: Dragalia Lost (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Post-Canon, chapter 10 spoilers!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 13:15:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20742794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deprespresso/pseuds/Navi
Summary: The events of Clave Loy'elune settle heavily on everyone's minds. It brings about a midnight conversation; one which resurfaces older memories for the centuries-old sylvan.





	Can you tell me of him?

**Author's Note:**

> This quick oneshot is a personal take based off of the recently released Chapter 10 of Dragalia Lost, so it's very spoiler heavy! I highly suggest playing through the game mode if you haven't already; besides that, enjoy!

“Hey, Cleo. Good evening.”

To call it an evening was an understatement. Both the prince and the sylvan were aware of this, but neither spoke up in correction— it was blatantly obvious by now how late into the night it was. The full moon’s path along the sky was striding towards the horizon, just a skip or two further from the midline of the sky. It was well past midnight; that much was certain.

“Your Majesty… why are you still awake at this hour?”

“I could ask you the same.”

A simple exchange. One to which the young King’s brows furrowed in worry, craning his head a tad. Cleo was holding something rather large, rectangular in framework; Cleo made no attempt to hide it.

“Taking a moment to admire my ‘hideous beast’, if you will.”

Maybe Euden was just a tad too tense; the sudden remark was stunning enough to make the boy wince, in recollection of the past... incident, which he never did stop feeling guilty over. A response so noticeable that the other couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Y-You know I didn’t mean it like that…”

“I know, I know. It was a statement made only in jest, milord.”

With much less hesitation than she exuded prior, Cleo turned to fully face Euden, her portrait resting comfortably on the flats of her fingers. She turned it over, as to give the boy a better look— and pulsed it forward suddenly, making it mimic a pouncing monster.

“Roooar!”

“Gah! C-Cut it out!”

He didn’t want to admit that Cleo’s ‘pouncing’ of the picture made him jump back, but it was far too clear for him to deny. The paleness of his cheeks made way for a blanket of scarlet red, which he would turn his head to stifle.

“Haha! Did I catch you off guard for a second time?”

“Yeah… I guess I’m a lot more jumpy right now, huh?”

The smile of concession didn’t quite align with the tinge of melancholy in Euden’s exhausted gaze. Cleo pulled back, a twang of guilt festering in her chest.

She realized, now, that she may have been accidentally exploiting a sore area.

“...Can you tell me of him, Cleo?”

Euden looked cautiously down to the painting— namely, the subject of it. Cleo confessed long ago that her artistic abilities were scarce to none, and yet— now that he truly knew, he could look at this painting and see the man. The great King, Alberius, immortalized through the loving hands of his former servant.

“Alberius… my master. The kindness he’s shown me was unlike any other I’ve ever known prior; he held a heart of gold, so unwavering. So…”

_“Cleo, are you alright? You are awake much later than you typically are— has something kept your mind restless?”_

_“Your Majesty—! N-No, there is nothing of concern on which you need waste your time.”_

_“My concern is not placed in such a way as to waste my time, Cleo. Mym has mentioned that you’ve been hesitant to speak to me. Have I done something of fault..?”_

_“Perish the thought, my king! I could not fault you for a single misendeavor… really, I am alright. You’ve graced me with more than enough kindness than a mere servant ought to deserve.”_

_“You are not a mere servant, Cleo. I know I have said so often thus far, but there is no less truth to my hopes. I hope for the day to come that you will, one day, see me not as a master; but a friend.”_

_“A friend…”_  
Her eyes rested shut, though she wasn’t asleep. Euden was hesitant on breaking whatever trance she was in, so he refrained; an act of patience returned, kindly enough, by Cleo’s return to reality.

“...so much like you, Euden. I am afraid— no, I am ashamed at how stubborn I once was. Your kindness extended to the very same far reaches as his own, and the only difference is how I.. I…”

The sylvan’s grasp around the aged wooden edges of the frame grew tighter, her pink orbs trembling as they gazed to the young king’s feet. Once more, she fell into silence.

_“N-No! King Alberius!!!”_

_“Ah, it would make me wail as well to see the hero in whom I placed all of my trust meet such a feeble end.”_

_Just breathing was so painful— every upheaval of her chest beget a chest burning sob. Disbelief grew with every gasp. No, he couldn’t have… could this really have been how her master met his end..?_

_“We need to catch up to him.”_

_“And what do you intend to do when you catch up to him!? Y-You can’t possibly mean to…”_

_“...”_

_“No… you can’t! YOU CAN’T!!”_

_Her throat was clawed by raspiness. By the Goddess, never had she screamed so loudly, so desperately— and yet her cries were met only by sympathetic gazes, but a gentle refusal of her every plea. Deep down, she knew there was no other option; but she was too afraid to delve that far down._

_She was too afraid to face the truth._

There was no masking the hurt, the fear, that devoured at her then.  
For so long, all she had known was that Alberius left the castle and never returned— she had never questioned it. She had never known what became of him, or why. From three hundred years of ignorant solitude…

...she had to watch his end.

“Cleo…”

_“C-Cleo… is that truly you..?”_

_In all its terror, the dragon; its words held a fading echo of the purity it once was. The call was powerful enough to rear the sylvan’s head in awe, in disbelief._

_“You recognize me, Your Majesty!?”_

_His demeanor forced itself to soften, if even for just a moment. She knew she was incapable of healing him from centuries of disrepair, but her hands tightly gripped at her staff; begging for a chance at salvaging his life._

_“...You have grown into a fine woman, Cleo.”_

_“I have waited three hundred years for this reunion… but I have never dreamed it would turn out this way…!”_

_“Then I beg of you to understand: if I am consumed by the Other, it will bring about great calamity.”_

_“B-But, I cannot…”_

_“Destroying this body will not mean my demise. My true death would be the loss of the will to destroy the Other— the will for peace. Please, Cleo… you must understand!”_

“Cleo, you must understand—!”

A shaking gasp slipped from Cleo’s lips, just as the painting slipped from her fingers— however, it didn’t hit the ground and splinter. It was caught, hand in hand, by the king. Her own hands followed his, swiftly; they halted atop his, but did not clasp on.

“...Alberius was fortunate to have you, Cleo. Just as fortunate as I am.”

Euden glanced, once more, to the painting in his hands. He could imagine the sylvan’s meticulous thought with every stroke of the brush; paint long-since dried, with every morsel of intent captured in the piece. The image beckoned a gentle smile...

“He knew— he understood how much he meant to you, no matter how much you don’t believe that you’ve let him know. When he spoke to you that last time, Cleo… he was happy. I could tell.”

“Happy… how could I have made him happy..?”

“I feel like he had seen it in you. How much you’ve grown, and opened your heart to everyone— to me, when I needed it most. He wanted to know that you finally saw yourself as someone more than just a servant…”

_ **“...but as a friend.”** _

There was no more prolonging the tears that dribbled down her cheeks.  
Cleo’s eyes shut themselves tightly as she leapt forth, draping her arms around Euden, pulling him into the grandest hug she had ever mustered.

And, without an ounce of hesitance, the king’s arms reciprocated it.

_“You are an incredible person, Cleo. An incredible friend._  
_I pray the day comes when you finally see that for yourself.”_


End file.
